Season 5 began on Friday afternoon and I am once again jumping in with my regular group of friends. In typical fashion, I’m either dead last in my ability to pull my own weight, or I am somewhere in the middle and inconsequential. This all boils down to luck + time. I put in less time and have less luck, therefore I have less gear. RNG loot drops and all.
This time around I am playing a Wizard — for the very first time. Luckily, I think I didn’t pick the worst class this season. I have a knack for picking the class that just flounders. I think with some luck I might actually push to a 85+ grift.
A number of changes were introduced this season that have, thus far, made the experience more enjoyable. Everything from supercharging the Grifts as a form of money sink to new items, achievements, class balances, etc. The biggest change for me has been giving away a “free set.”
Free Set
Everyone receives what has essentially become the “free set.” Reach level 70 and you’ll receive 2 pieces of your classes predetermined set. Defeat a boss and then solo a Rank 20 Grift and you will get the other 4.
- Barbarian: Might of the Earth
- Crusader: Thorns of the Invoker
- Demon Hunter: The Shadow’s Mantle
- Monk: Monkey King’s Garb
- Witch Doctor: Raiment of the Jade Harvester
- Wizard: Firebird’s Finery
The free set means you get to jump to T6+ almost instantly whereas, if you’re like me, this process could take any number of hours or days depending on your loot drops. These sets are balanced to be lower tier, yet fun enough to push you into the more difficult and meta game that is the Diablo 3 gear grind.
We’ll see how long I last! Some seasons it’s a week. Others it’s a month or two. I’m in a competition with my group right now to try to see who stays the longest.
The free set is massive. I hit 70 last night and then killed T2 Zultan soon after so I have 4 pieces of the free set. Last season it was taking me days/weeks to become even a little viable. I couldn’t seem to get more than 1 or 2 pieces of any set. Without at least some kind of set, or very specific legendaries, you are pretty useless.
They have it at a pretty good spot now, at least for Monk. While 4 pieces of the free set have gotten me into Torment and grifts, and I do feel like a killing machine at the moment, there are still better sets. I was pretty excited to get Uliana’s shoulders to drop in my first grift as that is my target set.
I think I will last longer this go around. The prospect of farming for a better set while in a set simply seems like it will be a better experience than desperately farming for any kind of set while wearing rags.
Wizards are the best! Just you wait and see! The Tal Rasha set is amazing to play with! 🙂
I’m glad we can import our characters from normals now for a season. My slots were starting to run out. =S Still haven’t started the new season, though. I’m on the fence between a crusader and a witch doctor this season. Went with exploding palm monk last season, which was a ton of fun, but very undecided between going melee or ranged this go around.
@Gringar: Amen to that!
@Miriam: I’ll give Tal Rasha a go. I’ve been collecting a lot of DMO set thinking I’d jump to that, but I do have lots of Tals.
@Jeff: I just delete characters, never becoming attached to them. For whatever reason, Diablo 3 outside of a season is entirely unappealing to me.
Hoh long does it take to get to 70 these days ? Not sure if I have the amount of time ‘cos all those other games….
I have extremely limited play time, like everyone else, and I made it to 70 in about 2 days. That’s about 5 – 6 hours I think. If you have a pretty good understanding of the game it goes by pretty fast. Some people were hitting 70 in 3 hours. It all depends on experience and if you have people to group with. Grouping can make it much faster. Even if you aren’t getting PL’ed grouping is just better experience. Of course if you can get PL’ed you’d make 70 in about 30 – 40 minutes, lol.
You have just convinced my friends and I to also try this season! We amped!
Power Leveling is quicker than ever. The season has only been up for a few days now and I can easily PL a level 1 character with zero twink gear to 70 in 15 minutes or less.
I haven’t tried the new Firebirds set but it honestly looks a lot weaker than just about every other class set. The problem is that the specific circumstances to activate it’s big damage boost is much more time consuming and annoying than everything else. That said I haven’t tried it, and the only person I play with who tried it has never played a wizard and couldn’t manage the rank 20 Greater Rift after several tries.
Just for the clueless – what is the point of the seasons…what is exciting about them? Is there a good summary anywhere?
Seasons are like a reset of a particular ladder where you have to start a character over at level 1. New items are introduced each season which start out as only available on “season” characters but when the season ends they are folded
Into the rest of the game along with the characters.
Season characters become non seasonal characters at the end of each season.
Firebirds 6-piece set bonus is underwhelming in that it requires the enemy to have accumulated that persistent fire damage from the 4-piece bonus (you’ve done 3000% of your weapon DPS, so they have a swirling fire icon over their heads).
I find that by the time I get non-elites to take enough damage to have the fire icon, they are dead anyways, so I’m mainly benefitting from the 600% Elite burning bonus, which doesn’t even kick in until the elite is half dead (at which point it dies in the following 2 seconds).
If anyone wants PL, hop on vent between 8 and 11pm MST and I will help you out.
I saw a suggestion, a question really, on the diablo 3 site to use the legendary power of the new 2 handed sword Scourge. 45% chance on attacking to cause a 1800 – 2000% weapon dmg fire explosion. I actually have this in the cube on my monk to help a bit with dmg but it seems like it would get you to 3000% real quick with good procs. I guess it depends on if the sword’s power only procs on melee hits or something.